Subject: [Tweeters] A song sparrow gets a singing lesson
Date: Jul 22 21:22:44 2009
From: Rob Sandelin - floriferous at msn.com


A young song sparrow was perched on a salmonberry. It caught my attention
because it was sort of twitching its shoulders around then it would raise up
its head and point its beak upward, almost as if clearing its throat.
Finally it burst into a song, close to a typical song sparrow but kind of
squeaky and ending abruptly. It sang three more attempts, each one
completely different and on the third try an adult bird flew up. Not sure if
this was its parent or a neighbor but this bird gave a couple of renditions
of what the song was supposed to sound like. I could not help but imagine
it was a singing lesson. Before any more singing could happen a deer
wandered up out of the woods and up the trail causing the birds to fly
elsewhere. I was about to get mad at the deer for interrupting the birds
when the new fawn emerged and of course all thoughts of birds vanished under
the cuteness of bambi.

Rob Sandelin
Snohomish County